Introduction

Abstract

A few years ago, as editors of The Italianist, we found that we were receiving an increasing number of articles on Italian culture which focused on women. In 1987, we brought these together in a special number of the journal, entitled Women and Italy, which included work on language, literature, and history.¹ As far as we know, this was the first time in Italian studies that analyses of this kind had been presented together in a collective volume in English. Encouraged by the favourable reception which the volume received and by the continuing flow of articles in this area, we thought it would be worth publishing such research in a book addressed to a wider audience. A selection of the specialist articles which had appeared in volumes of The Italianist were revised and up-dated, and several other studies were specially commissioned, so that the book could have a broader perspective and its own individual character.² While we were completing the editing work, two important North American collections appeared, both of which also explore aspects of women’s position in Italian culture.³ What distinguishes these collaborative ventures from ours, however, is their almost exclusively literary perspective.